| ▲ | hilbert42 31 minutes ago | |
"But still able to create additional annoying regulations on top of nation level ones." It seems to me the EU is overburdened with trivial regulations (like regulating the maximum power consumption of domestic vacuum cleaners) rather than prioritizing core issues of its single market, manufacturing, trade, etc. Trouble is small vested interests hold overly powerful sway over EU-wide policy. The example above is a case in point, individual member states should be able to set their own regulations independently if deemed warranted. You're correct, annoying regulations are bloating the EU bureaucracy making it lethargic and uncompetitive. | ||
| ▲ | prof-dr-ir a few seconds ago | parent [-] | |
> individual member states should be able to set their own regulations independently if deemed warranted. People proclaim this with such confidence, especially in the UK before the Brexit years I must say, and yet there are so many arguments against it. First, accepting this goes against a core tenet of the single market, since the single market for vacuum cleaners is now split into 27 little markets. We thus need 27 regulatory bodies to each investigate, and then make a political decision, on the maximum power setting of domestic vacuum cleaners. Then, producers in China will have to make (up to) 27 different models of vacuum cleaners. This is certainly not going to be cheaper, completely destroys the famous Brussels effect [0], all for some token amount of "sovereignty". Nations states can sovereignly decide to delegate this process of rule making to Brussels, and domestic vacuum cleaners are a perfectly mundane "case in point" to showcase the benefits of this process. The EU is far from a perfect union, but throwing these frankly naive arguments around will not help it much. | ||